Neville's gold medal is the eighth by an IU track and field athlete, and his gold in the 1600m relay is the fourth in IU lore.

Aug. 23, 2008

BEIJING, China - Indiana alum David Neville ran the third leg of the 4x400m relay on Saturday, helping the Americans set a new Olympic record en route to a gold medal finish. Neville joined gold and silver medalists in the 400-meters LaShawn Merritt and Jeremy Wariner and Angelo Taylor in the winning effort. The victors finished nearly three seconds ahead of the field.

Team USA never let go of the lead that was set up by Merritt in the lead leg. When Wariner crossed the finish line on the anchor leg, he was 12 strides ahead of Chris Brown of the Bahamas, finishing in 2:55.39 to break the Olympic record by 0.35 second.

Neville's gold medal is the eighth by an IU track and field athlete, and his gold in the 1600m relay is the fourth in IU lore. He joins Ivan Fuqua (1932), Roy Cochran (1948) and Sunder Nix (1984), the previous IU gold-medalists in the event. Neville's gold is the first for IU since Nix's efforts in Los Angeles.

Neville took the bronze medal in the 400-meter final, diving across the finish line to beat a runner from Great Britain and Brown, of the Bahamas, across the line. He finished behind only Merritt and Wariner. Neville's bronze is the first Olympic medal in an individual event for and IU track and field athlete since Willie May took silver in the 120-yard hurdles in 1960.

Neville was a five-time All-American at Indiana, and he was named Big Ten Freshman of the Year in 2003. Neville was named All-Big Ten four times in his three years at IU.

Today's race will be shown via tape delay on NBC at 8 p.m. ET tonight

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